t they had not observed it.

"That is not a lunch box," laughed Billy, "but you have eyes all the
same. No one else noticed it."

"What is it, anyhow?" asked Kenneth Blaisdell, one of the new boys at
the Academy. "Box for botanic specimens?"

"No, it is not and I am not going to satisfy your curiosity by telling
you what it is just now," chuckled Billy. "Come on, Dick, we have a
large enough party now."

There were Percival, Jack, Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners, Blaisdell and
Jasper Sawyer, the boy whose initials were the same as Jack's, seven in
all, and each of the party well liked by all the rest.

They set off without delay, and passing through the woods back of the
Academy, and avoiding the ravine down which Jack had fallen, kept on
down the hill on the side away from the station at the foot, and then up
another and through a very rough, extremely wild section, where travel
at times was most difficult.

"There is not much wonder that we have not been here before," laughed
Billy Manners, as he sat on a rock and puffed for breath after they had
gone some distance through the thicket, and stopped in an opening where
the travel was better.

"Yes, we should have brought axes with us," said Percival. "I had no
idea the country through here was so rough."

"Well, the doctor said it was and so did some of the fellows," said
Arthur; "so we cannot say anything."

"Did they tell you about this gully?" asked Jack, who had gone ahead a
few paces, and paused in front of a deep gully stretching right across
their path, and presenting an obstacle which there seemed to be no way
of getting over.

The gully was quite wide in front of them, and to the left extended into
the woods as far as they could see, while on the right it presently
ended at a great mass of ledge rock, which towered well above their
heads, and was crowned with trees, some of them very big, while at
different points, as far as the bottom, there were trees of various
sizes growing from crevices in the rock.

"H'm! I guess they did not know about this," muttered Percival. "This
gully can be bridged all right, and it will be a nice job for us; just
the sort I like, but in the meantime, how are we going to get over and
go on with our exploring?"

"You ought to know that," laughed Billy Manners. "You are an engineer,
you know. A little thing like that ought not to bother you."

"Well, it does all the same," said Percival with some impatience, as
Billy to